Not upheld: Fraud reimbursement (APP scams) complaint against Wise Payments Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs J fell victim to an investment scam where scammers used remote device access and psychological coercion with threats to manipulate her into making 10 payments totalling £123,055 via a Wise account, and taking out £80,000 in loans. Bank H refunded her first four payments (£67,600) but Building Society N rejected her claim, and Wise offered only a 25% partial refund (£11,051.25) for the remaining disputed payments. The ombudsman found that while Wise should have implemented stronger human interventions given the risk factors, such interventions would not have prevented her loss because she would likely have been untruthful due to scammer coercion, as evidenced by her dishonesty to other banks despite receiving investment scam warnings. The complaint was not upheld and Wise's partial refund offer was deemed fair and reasonable.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Wise should have implemented stronger human interventions (email intervention at payment 2 and phone call interventions at payments 3, 4, and 5) given the risk factors of a new account, large international payments, and cumulative amounts in short timeframes, such interventions would not have prevented Mrs J's loss. The ombudsman concluded on the balance of probabilities that Mrs J would have been untruthful to Wise agents (as she was to Bank L and other banks) due to coercion and fear from the scammers. The ombudsman noted that Mrs J demonstrated clear communication abilities, had received investment scam warnings from Bank L that directly applied to her situation, and was consistently dishonest about the purpose of payments and loans. The ombudsman found no evidence of vulnerability indicators that would have been apparent to Wise, and concluded that age alone (retirement age, not over 80) cannot be considered in isolation as indicating incapacity to make financial decisions.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website